The US Senate has not specified when this measure will come to a vote.
Although the DC Council announced that the bill allowing non-citizens to vote was signed into law, Congress clarified that this has yet to happen.
The bill, signed into law without DC Mayor Muriel Bowser's signature on November 21, 2022, would expand the definition of a "qualified elector" in local elections "to include eligible non-citizen residents," according to the bill.
The confusion occurred after the DC Council announced on Monday the approval of the legislation with the argument that the Senate did not vote after the 30 days established in the US Constitution.
The law of maximum hierarchy establishes that Congress must supervise the legislative process carried out by the Council of the country's capital. This includes approving, vetoing, or amending a project.
Those procedure rules also give each legislative body 30 days to evaluate a piece of legislation after the Council presents it for consideration.
In this case, the DC Council Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022 was struck down in the House of Representatives in a vote of 260-173.
However, it has yet to be evaluated by the US Senate, and, in effect, the period to do so has yet to end because the House received the bill on January 30, so it has until March 14 to approve it. , veto or amend the legislation. This was announced by the spokesperson for DC's non-voting representative to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton.
The Senate has yet to specify when this bill is expected to come to a vote.
Also, the controversy comes after Senator Joe Manchin anticipated that he will vote with Senate Republicans to reverse the controversial DC criminal code reform bill when it hits the floor of Congress.
House and Senate lawmakers say Congress has 60 days to review any law dealing with criminal sanctions, 30 days longer than other laws, giving the Senate until April 26 to vote for DC criminal code reform.
This story was initially published in Spanish in Telemundo 44. Read it here.
Maggie More also contributed to this story.